News
This picture of a US aircraft carrier heading to the Middle East on Jun. 16 was taken from HDB block in Dawson
Big ships.
June 27, 2025, 08:56 PM
On Jun. 16, reports began emerging of the USS Nimitz, the oldest nuclear-powered warcraft in the US fleet, being rerouted from the Indo Pacific to the Middle East.
The carrier was supposed to be on its way to Vietnam, with a reception for its planned port call even being planned on Jun. 20.
But plans changed.
Reuters cited one of their sources saying that the cancellation of the reception had been due to "an emergent operational requirement".
Tensions in the middle east were high, with US involvement a real possibility being floated up.
The Nimitz had also been previously deployed in support of US military operations like "Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom".
Other military rerouting were also taking place as the Nimitz made its way to the middle east.
Politico had reported then that dozens of refuelling aircraft had also been deployed to Europe in a "preventative measure" to support any operations in the Middle East.
The 12 day war was in full swing, and the world was holding its breath to see the extent of US involvement in the hostilities.
Right time, right place
Also on Jun. 16, Remy Osman was on one of his work-from-home days. He had gotten a heads up that the USS Nimitz was in the waters around Singapore.
So at around 3:15pm, Remy grabbed his Nikon P950, and went up to the roof level at Dawson SkyVille when it was just coming into range.
Remy noted that it was travelling at "high speed" so he had about 15 minutes to take his photos.
And here they are:
Images courtesy of Remy Osman
And here's what it looked like on the day itself.
Big
I met Remy with a simple question.
Why photograph ships?
Remy one-upped me in the simple conversation-Olympics.
"Because they are big."
That was the main impetus for Remy's love of photographing ships.
Serving a Stay Home Notice at Shangri La during the throes of the pandemic, Remy started photographing these behemoths at sea.
After moving into Dawson Skyville with his wife, he noticed a very interesting vantage point for photographing ships.
Here it is.
You can see the entirety (almost) of Singapore from up there.
But it was still the ships that called to Remy. Noticing an aircraft carrier, that time a French one -their flagship Charles de Gaulle- he decided to purchase his now-trusty Nikon P950 to get a better view of the ships.
According to the specs on their website, the P950 features an 83x optical zoom.
For a quick comparison, here's a shot using the 10x zoom on his Pixel 9 Pro.
Image from sgshipspotting/Instagram
Here's a shot from the same vantage point using the 2,000m lens on his Nikon.
Image from sgshipspotting/Instagram
And here are some of Remy's favourite shots.
Photo from sgshipspotting/IG
If you look slightly further (on a clear day), you can even see our neighbours to the North.
Here's a silhouette of Johor's Forest City illuminated by a rather stunning sunset.
But if you look slightly closer, you can see the turning of the world.
That includes pictures of potential world-shifting players passing by Singapore, like the USS Nimitz mentioned earlier.
But he also took a picture of this innocuous container ship in early 2021.
A few weeks later, this happened.
Events
But it is not the headline makers that show the flow of the world best. To Remy, the headlines themselves inform the ships that pass.
For example if Iran had closed the Strait of Hormuz, Remy noted that he might not be seeing much of the Qatari gas tankers that currently sail past Singapore.
Similarly the war in Ukraine also shifted the amount and type of ships around our area.
But perhaps the biggest (literally and metaphorically) shifting of the tides in recent years have been the cargo ships.
For how awe-inspiring the Nimitz might have been, even that pales in comparison to the real juggernauts of the ocean.
"Some of the container ships that come are over 20 per cent bigger."
Here are some nifty size comparisons courtesy of Remy.
Here's a tanker compared to a patrol vessel.
And here's a tanker next to a cargo ship.
Cutting out the middlemen, here's a container ship next to patrol vessel.
Images from sgshipspotting/Instagram
Holy moly.
In fact, here's the largest class of container ship in the world when Remy started taking photos of ships back in 2020.
In just five years, there are now 39 container ships with a larger cargo capacity than the HMM Algeciras.
90 per cent of globally traded goods are carried cross oceans, and maritime trade volumes are still expected to triple by 2050.
If you are interested in trying to photograph ships, be warned that these cargo ships will be your most consistent muse. Perhaps not the most aesthetically diverse or interesting in terms of design.
So if you are looking forward to capturing scores of interesting military aircraft carriers, it might be slow going at first.
But if you like ships because of how big they are? Might as well grab a camera and head to the roof, it's going to be a good couple of decades.
Images courtesy of Remy Osman
